The start of the term of this course has been a bit odd, so we need to work quite a lot at home on communication and improving our English grammar. Today we’ve been looking at Halloween, so we’re going to revise the present, past and future continuous tenses in the context of Halloween.
Halloween VOCABULARY:
ORIGINS OF HALLOWEEN (PAST TENSES)
BBC LEARNING:
Many years ago, in a place called Ireland, there was an ancient people known as the Celts. They celebrated a big festival at the end of the month of October called Samhain. For this people, summer was ending and winter was beginning, a cold and dark season. The Celts thought that on this very special night, the door between the world of the living and the world of the dead opened, and spirits could walk on Earth.
To not be afraid and to confuse the ghosts that visited their houses, people wore scary masks and strange costumes. Also, they lit big bonfires on the hills to light the way and protect their homes. With the passage of time, this celebration changed a lot. More than one hundred and fifty years ago, many people from Ireland traveled by boat to the United States and took all their customs and stories there.
There, the festival adopted the name Halloween, which comes from an old English expression (All Hallows´Eve, víspera de todos los Santos).
Today, children dress up as witches, vampires, or friendly monsters and walk through the streets decorated with illuminated pumpkins. Families put candles inside carved pumpkins with smiling or angry faces, a tradition inspired by the legend of a man named Stingy Jack (Jack el Tacaño). Children knock on the doors of neighboring houses and shout a very famous phrase: "Trick or treat!" The neighbors open the door and give them candies, chocolates, and delicious sweets. It is a very fun night where everyone shares laughs, games, and unforgettable moments with their friends.
Trick-or-Treating mith.
There is much debate around the origins of trick-or-treating, but generally there are three theories. The first theory suggests that during Samhain, Celtic people would leave food out to appease the spirits traveling the Earth at night. Over time, people began to dress as these unearthly beings in exchange for similar offerings of food and drink.
The second theory speculates that the candy boon stems from the Scottish practice of guising, which is a secular version of “souling.” During the Middle Ages, generally children and poor adults would collect food and money from local homes in return for prayers for the dead on All Souls’ Day. Guisers dropped the prayers in favor of non-religious practices with the inclusion of songs, jokes, and other “tricks.”
A third theory argues that modern American trick-or-treating stems from “belsnickeling,” a German-American Christmas tradition where children would dress in costume and then call on their neighbors to see if the adults could guess the identities of the disguised. In one version of the practice, the children were rewarded with food or other treats if no one could identify them.
OUR TASKS:
We have analysed its origins and drawn up a mind map that will help us: the past-the present-the future of our Halloween
- Read&aloud:
- The past: the origins of Halloween.
- The present: what we usually do at this time of year. Gotham
- The future: what we are going to create and take to school. We are going to participate into School contest. Let´s see...
